The SoDA Report (Volume 2, 2013)

Tony Quin

Intro
“ SoDA has truly

become a global
organization made up
of the most respected
digital agencies and
creative companies in
the world.

”

Thank you for viewing our second 2013 edition of The
SoDA Report.
We are delighted that The SoDA Report has become
one of the most viewed digital trend publications in
the world, with over 140,000 views per issue. In this
latest issue, SoDA’s elite membership, partners and
other industry leaders provide their latest insights into
digital innovation and the blurring borders of digital
marketing, customer service and product design.
SoDA is gaining unprecedented momentum as the
organization enters its seventh year of existence.
From a base of 13 founding companies in 2006, the
organization has grown to 75 handpicked member
companies with 200+ offices worldwide. SoDA has
truly become a global network made up of the most
respected digital agencies and creative companies in the
world.
Getting into SoDA is not easy. Only 11% of the
companies that applied over the past 12 months have
been invited to become a member. It’s a rigorous
process. A member must nominate candidate
companies. Based on their HQ location, regional
membership committees from North America, South
America, Europe or Asia then review their work and
culture. Those that pass go on to be reviewed by the
board, which presents its recommendations to the entire
membership for a vote. This direct democracy and

commitment to the highest standards of excellence has
produced a peer group that is different from any other
in the digital world.
What makes SoDA truly unique though is the open
and candid culture of the organization. SoDA members
share a belief that we gain much more by collaborating
than by operating in isolation. So we choose to help each
other have better businesses and compete based on the
quality of our ideas rather than the mechanics of our
businesses. The result is an organization like no other.
In the coming year, you will not only see more editions
of The SoDA Report, but also SoDA’s expanded
presence at SXSW, Cannes and other major industry
events, in addition to our own event series. You will see
a continuation of our Digital Marketing Roundtable
webinars, many open to the public; the growth of our
Peer Collaboration Groups that currently involve 800+
members spanning 15 disciplines and topic areas;
more developments in our IP defense program; the
continued growth of our benchmark studies, unique
in our business, and other ambitious initiatives to be
announced in the coming months.
I hope you find this edition of The SoDA Report
valuable and enjoyable. Take the time to explore our
website at www.sodaspeaks.com, where you can also
sign up for our mailing list and keep informed about
upcoming SoDA events.
Best wishes,
Tony Quin
Chairman of the Board, SoDA
CEO, IQ Agency

Angèle Beausoleil

Foreword
Welcome to our 2H 2013 edition of The SoDA Report.
For both marketers and agencies, we offer some “secret
sauces” to help you navigate the current business
climate, stay ahead of technology trends, deliver creative
excellence and simplify some of life’s complexities.
We entertain you with digital detox recommendations
and suggest how agencies and brands can play on the
same team. We also cast a spotlight on innovative
ethnography techniques and employ the metaphor of a
rhizome to help you better understand human behavior
and improve your creativity quotient.
The issue also presents some back-to-basics on how to
operate and structure a successful creative or production
company as well as an in-house creative team. For the
geeks in all of us, we explore the user-friendliness of new
mobile development tools, the effectiveness of creative
workflow applications and the promise of wearable
technology.
Our human vs technology discussion continues with more
future gazing into our relationship with technologies and
how the Internet of Things is evolving. This volume closes
with an exploration into the digital agency’s role as both a
client and consumer advocate, and how we can facilitate
and empower better dialogue between brands and
consumers— and between agencies and clients. Enjoy!

Angèle Beausoleil
Editor-in-Chief

The SoDA Report
Team & Partners
Content Development
Angèle Beausoleil

Editor-in-Chief of The SoDA Report,
Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Agent Innovateur Inc.

Angèle Beausoleil has spent the last two decades
working with digital agencies, technology companies
and consumer brands on identifying market trends,
leading research and development projects through
innovation labs and crafting strategic plans. Today,
she balances her graduate studies (PhD in Applied
Innovation) with teaching Thinking Strategies at
UBC’s d.studio, and a strategic marketing consulting
practice. Angèle is also the Editor-in-Chief for The
SoDA Report and is an advisory board member for the
Merging+Media Association, Vancouver International
Film Festival, Kibooco (kids edutainment start-up) and
the Digital Strategy Committee for the University of
British Columbia (UBC). Angèle lives in Vancouver with
her husband and son.
Chris Buettner

Managing Editor of The SoDA Report,
SoDA Executive Director

After a career on the digital agency and publisher side
that spanned 15+ years, Chris Buettner now serves as
Managing Editor of The SoDA Report. He is also the
Executive Director of SoDA where he is charged with
developing and executing the organization’s overall
strategic vision and growth plan. And with roots in

journalism, education and the international non-profit
world, the transition to lead SoDA has been a welcome
opportunity to combine many of his talents and
passions. After living in Brazil and Colombia for years,
Chris is also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is an
enthusiastic supporter of SoDA’s initiatives to increase
its footprint in Latin America and around the world.
Chris lives in Atlanta with his wife and two daughters.

Editorial Team
Sean MacPhedran

Industry Insider,
Group Planning Director, Fuel Industries

Sean is Group Planning Director at Fuel Industries
(based in Ottawa, Canada), where he currently
works with clients including McDonald’s Europe,
Nokia, Mattel and Lucasfilm. He specializes in youth
marketing, entertainment & game development, and
the incorporation of pirates into advertising campaigns
for brands ranging from Jeep to Family Guy. Outside
of Fuel, he is a co-founder of the Ottawa International
Game Conference, managed the category-free
Tomorrow Awards and spent a good deal of time in the
Mojave Desert launching people into space at the X
PRIZE Foundation. They all came back alive.
Matt Griffin

Advocacy,
Founder/CEO, Deepend

With over 15 years’ experience in design and interactive
media, Matt was an active participant in the formative
years of the digital communications industry, gaining
valuable experience with Deepend in London, before
setting up Deepend Sydney in 2000. An industry leader,
Matt has been on many interactive panels and award
juries both in Australia and internationally. Amongst

other positions, he is an Executive Academy member of
IADAS, Executive Juror of the Webbys, and Grand Juror
of CRESTA.
Jean-Pascal Mathieu
People Power,
Chief Innovation Officer, Nurun

As the chief innovation officer and director of the Nurun
Lab, Jean-Pascal Mathieu is always looking for new
digital solutions to solve consumer problems. Previously
the vice president of strategy, Jean-Pascal has
contributed to the design of new service offerings and
has ensured the diffusion of innovative technological
expertise throughout the company. A keen observer
of the evolution of interactivity, he is a frequent
contributor to industry publications.
Mark Pollard

Modern Marketer,
VP Brand Strategy, Big Spaceship

Mark is a brand planner who grew up digital. He built
his first website in 1997 then published the first fullcolor hip hop magazine in the Southern Hemisphere,
while working at dotcoms, digital agencies and
advertising agencies. He is featured in the AdNews Top
40 under 40, and won a Gold Account Planning Group
(APG) award for his McDonald’s ‘Name It Burger’
strategy. A New South Wales government initiative
listed him as one of Sydney’s Top 100 Creative Catalysts.
Mark is now VP of Brand Strategy at Big Spaceship in
New York City.
Zachary Jean Paradis

Tech Talk,
Director of Innovation Strategy, SapientNitro

Zachary Jean Paradis is an innovation strategist,
professor and author obsessed with transforming
lives through customer experience. He works at

SapientNitro, teaches at the Institute of Design and
lives in Chicago. Zachary works with companies to
become successful innovators by utilizing “experience
thinking” as a strategic asset manifested in better
offerings, flexible process and open culture. He works
with start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies as diverse
as Chrysler Auto Group to Target, Hyatt Hotels to
John Deere, M&S to McLaren, and SAP to Yahoo!
evolving service and product experiences across digital
and physical channels. Zachary recently relocated to
Chicago from SapientNitro’s London office.
Kate Richling

SoDA Showcases,
VP of Marketing, Phenomblue

As Phenomblue’s Vice President of Marketing, Kate
Richling oversees the agency’s marketing and social
media outreach, as well as its inbound marketing efforts.
Previously, Richling worked in public relations, creating
and executing strategies for institutes of higher education
and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, as well as providing social
media counsel to various non-profit organizations. While
at The Field Museum, Richling pitched and received media
attention from national outlets including Good Morning
America and the Chicago Tribune.

Partners
Cover Design

Organizational Sponsor

Content/Production

The SoDA Report
Production Team

Struck
www.struck.com

SoDA
www.sodaspeaks.com

Adobe
www.adobe.com

Natalie Smith, Head of Production
Samantha Lynch, Production Designer

The opinions and viewpoints expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the
authors, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions or viewpoints of SoDA

Industry Insider
Section Preface
The Digital Agency Paradox: Teaching Clients to Do What We Do
A Lesson from a “Learn Everything Yourself” Champion
From 6 Months to Real-Time: Innovating Creative Workflow for
Smarter Development
Brands: How to Get Agile with Your Agency
The Ever-Shrinking Purchase Window
The SoDA Report 2013

The

SoDAReport

Section 1 : Introduction

Traditionally, the digital agency has ruled the
technology and digital production service arena, but as
this expertise becomes more commoditized, the value
provided by the digital agency has had to shift towards
business strategy and creative innovation. Our fall issue
takes a more nuts and bolts look at what’s happening
inside agencies from an operational perspective during
this shift.
Sean MacPhedran
Industry Insider Section
Editor
Group Planning Director,
Fuel

Some clients are now competing with their digital
agencies by developing parallel expertise centers as
their internal web development teams grow stronger.
With the overarching strategy driven by clients, and
their increasing ability to execute, how do agencies
define their own “secret sauce” in the relationship?
David Maren from EffectiveUI explains how his agency
is navigating this trend.
For developers, we explore the proliferation of off-theshelf tools. Microsoft recently launched a platform that
makes core Windows Phone App development as user
friendly as building a Lego set. Are templated tools a
risk or an opportunity for agency developer teams?
Enlighten’s Kim Maida makes the case for efficiency
over 100% proprietary code.
We then connect with Ray Velez, CTO of Razorfish,
and Scott Morris, Senior Marketing Director for Adobe
Creative Cloud and Creative Suite, to discuss the
evolving nature of production within the studio, and
the technologies that are making it easier to focus less
on operations management and more on delivery of
creative excellence.
Lastly, we hear from Jack Skeels, CEO and Co-founder
of AgencyAgile, who provides good news surrounding

the shift in the way agencies are structuring their teams
- allowing for more innovation, shorter timelines, and
better prices.
Enjoy this edition of SoDA’s Industry Insider.

The

SoDAReport

Section 1 : Industry Insider

David Maren, VP, Brand Strategy & Innovation, EffectiveUI

The Digital Agency
Paradox: Teaching Clients
to Do What We Do
An Oxford-educated brand
strategist and innovation
professional, David is
currently focused on the
creation of new digital
products and services at
EffectiveUI, where he also
oversees the Outreach team
and manages the Boeing
account.

There was a time companies only engaged
us – the digital agencies of the world – to
create something. Seeing the value in what
we deliver, clients now want more from us.
They want strategic guidance, employee
training and mentoring. Clients want us to
educate them — but why? Are clients looking
to take the work in-house? If so, what is our
implied responsibility to our clients and our
shareholders? Do we teach our clients to do
what we do?

“ It’s exceedingly

difficult to create
exceptional digital
experiences and
campaigns when
a barrier exists
between design and
development.

”

The Conundrum

We fear that if we teach our clients how to do what
we do, they won’t need us anymore. Conversely, if
we don’t cater to our clients’ needs, are we a good
service partner? That question is amplified for any
digital agency claiming to care about user or customer
experience. Wouldn’t it be hypocritical not to give our
clients the service and experience they seek?

The Reality

For clients looking to take work in-house, the rationale
is typically stated as “This will save us money and make
us smarter.” In reality, clients seeking to bring agency
work in-house discover how difficult it is to do so
successfully – even when shown the way – and come to
appreciate our value even more.

Structural and Cultural Roadblocks

Large companies often have strong technical teams,
and some also have strong design teams. But, unlike
many agencies and production companies, these
companies often have a wall between their design team
and technical team creating separate groups, residing in
separate buildings and operating with separate budgets.
Agencies have learned that it’s exceedingly difficult to
create exceptional digital experiences and campaigns
when a barrier exists between design and development.
There’s a great deal of overlap between the two
disciplines, with a significant amount of design
occurring within development. The high level of design/
development collaboration required is one of the
primary reasons why bringing our services in-house —
and getting great results — is so much harder than it
seems.
Creating digital experiences is not the core competency
of most large enterprises. The organizational culture
and processes in place at many of these companies

“ Clients seeking to

bring great digital
experiences to life
without agency help
typically find that such
efforts often require
breaking down existing
silos and reengineering
organizational
structure, culture and
processes beforehand.

”

may be at odds with the beliefs that underlie humancentered design. Often, the customer comes into the
creation of a digital experience at the end, rather
than the beginning of the process and simply plays a
validation role.
Essentially, clients seeking to bring great digital
experiences to life without agency help, must break
down existing silos and reengineer their organizational
structure, culture and processes.

Finding and Keeping Talent

When thinking about the best creative directors,
designers, strategists and developers, the common
trait is that they all have a strong desire to take on new
challenges. This may prove more challenging in a client
environment than at an agency. To replicate agency
success in-house, recruiting and retaining great talent is
yet another challenge facing clients who want to build a
team of agency-types in-house.

The Way Forward

At EffectiveUI, our commitment to education gained
momentum in 2010 when O’Reilly Media commissioned
us to author a book (Effective UI) about what it takes to
bring great digital experiences to life. Today we’re going
all-in when it comes to teaching our clients how to do
what we do. We are now engaged as creators as well as
educators, strategists and embedded experts. Drawing
from our experience, I can provide some suggestions for
agency peers.

Educational Services

Consider offering a series of workshops to help nascent
in-house UX/CX teams become more fully integrated
within their larger organization. Focus different sessions
around the classic pain points these teams face, for
example:
• Low amount of organizational knowledge and buy-in
of UX

“ When we educate

clients on the intricacies
of what we do, they end
up understanding the
value of our services
even more.

”

• Many team members inexperienced with selling the
value of UX
• Weaving UX methods and values into organizational
structure, culture and processes.

Strategic Services

In addition to presenting insightful and actionable
reports, consider using these engagements to teach
clients how to identify opportunities and solve problems
through human-centered design. With so many
companies today simply creating mobile versions of
their desktop applications, there’s a great opportunity
to show them an alternate, outside-in approach to going
mobile that begins with uncovering the user needs.

Embedded Services

Listen for opportunities to embed talent that rises above
‘staff augmentation’, as in-house client teams are often
looking for additional guidance and mentorship from
their agency partner. Somewhere at this very moment,
there’s an IT executive on the client-side looking for an
outside expert to ensure that their in-house interaction
designer, who lacks mobile experience, is following best
practices in designing a sales enablement app.
You may be wondering, does pursuing a commitment
to educating clients mean that digital agencies will do a
lot more teaching and a lot less creating in the future?
It is doubtful. What it really means is that agencies will
do a lot more teaching and a lot more creating. After all,
when we educate clients on the intricacies of what we
do, they end up understanding the value of our services
even more.

The

SoDAReport


Kim Maida, Software Engineer, Enlighten

A lesson from a “Learn
Everything Yourself”
champion
Kim is a designer and
front-end engineer with
a passion for beautiful,
clean things. She also
dabbles with back-end
development. She loves
doing adaptive work that is
friendly to the full spectrum
of devices.

When I was a fledgling web creative, I wanted
to learn everything. I thought I should learn
everything in its infinite detail because I
believed it would make me smarter and more
valuable to employers. After years of learning
as much and as fast as I could, with too many
technologies simultaneously, I discovered one
simple lesson: you can be skilled and desirable
without needing to know everything.

“ Once you know your

craft, be willing to
explore the tools that
make that craft easier
and more efficient.

”

The “Learn Everything Yourself!”
phase is necessary but should have an
expiration date.

Countless computer science students, programming
interns and junior engineers are determined to learn
and do everything from scratch “for the experience.”
This is a solid approach for someone with an abundance
of time and energy. It’s a necessary stage in the
progression to full-fledged engineer. This was the phase
during which many people (myself included) churned
out oodles of inefficient code to do things that more
experienced people had already figured out, tested,
and developed into readily available tools, plugins,
libraries and frameworks. The “Learn Everything
Yourself!” phase is important, but it’s equally important
to know when to begin utilizing the available resources.
Otherwise, it’s easy to find yourself biting off more
than you can chew in a competitive, fast-paced work
environment.

You don’t need to know everything,
however you need to know what you
need to know.

It isn’t realistic for an engineer to master all of the
countless web technologies down to their finest minutia.
And you don’t need to. What you need is a solid
knowledge base and a willingness to learn whatever
you need in order to get the job done efficiently and
professionally. Sometimes this doesn’t mean having
every Git shell command or JavaScript cross-browser
fix memorized. Instead, it might mean that you need
a solid grasp of source control workflow and a good
understanding of JavaScript libraries.

Smart monkeys use tools.

Once you know your craft, be willing to explore the tools
that make that craft easier and more efficient. If you
had a perfectly functioning dishwasher, chances are you

“ It is critical to

understand when to
use tools, frameworks,
libraries and other
resources the
community has created
to make all developers’
lives easier.

”

would not volunteer to do the dishes by hand simply to
preserve the integrity of your scrubbing technique.
An oversimplified analogy, perhaps, but how about
this one: for a long time, I resisted CSS preprocessors
like SASS. I felt that they would lead me to write CSS
as a bastardized presentation/programming hybrid,
which just felt wrong. I felt like SASS (and similarly,
CoffeeScript) was cheating. I was also resistant to
installing more stuff (i.e. Ruby in this case) on all my
computers or servers just to get a preprocessor to
compile.
Then I discovered CodeKit. It is a building tool that is
capable of compiling a number of different languages,
adding debug information, linting, concatenating,
compressing, and returning resulting files that are as
production-ready as you need them to be. There is no
need to install additional software or languages or use
the command line. Using SASS with CodeKit made my
work more modular, efficient and manageable.
When the “Learn Everything Yourself!” mode is
dialed down and you’re ready to streamline your craft,
remember that most of the time, someone out there has
already solved your problem. You can benefit greatly
from their experience. In fact, it’s critical to understand
when to use the tools, frameworks, libraries and other
resources the community has created to make all
developers’ lives easier.
Agencies can and should take advantage of the available
tools to improve workflows and efficiency. Care should
also be taken to allow engineers to work in the capacity
they feel best maximizes their own productivity. The
imposition of too many tools and rules can frustrate and
hinder people. For example, if your company uses Git
for source control, encourage individual team members
to choose their own method, be it the command line or
their favorite GUI. Engineering leads should consult

with their teams and establish workflows and tools
that best suit the project at hand. It is also beneficial to
share experiences within the department, highlighting
successes and identifying pain points. When people are
passionate about their methods, curiosity and interest
level is kept high.
Keep in mind that tools with a steep learning curve
might not be the best way to introduce teams to their
use. I recommend starting with tools like CodeKit, SCSS
(the more CSS-like version of SASS), or TexturePacker
(for CSS sprite management) to get teams up and
running quickly. The more experience people gain and
share with these types of resources, the more knowledge
they will acquire and in the end, the management of
projects will become much more streamlined.

The

SoDAReport


Interview with Scott Morris, Senior Marketing Director
at Adobe for Creative Cloud and Creative Suite, and Ray
Velez, Global Chief Technology Officer, Razorfish

From 6 Months to RealTime: Innovating Creative
Workflow for Smarter
Development
As Senior Marketing
Director for Creative
Cloud, Scott is responsible
for driving the go-tomarket strategy for Adobe’s
flagship applications as
well as Adobe Creative
Cloud. Scott joined Adobe in
2005 from its Macromedia
acquisition, where he ran
integrated marketing for
vertical segments. Scott has
been in marketing for over
twenty years on both the
consumer and business-tobusiness side.

Digital creative tools — from Photoshop to
Maya — have fundamentally changed the
way advertising is made. The new area of
opportunity lies in improving workflow — a
circuitous process that doesn’t always move
in a predictable direction. We connected with
Ray Velez, CTO, Razorfish and Scott Morris,
Senior Marketing Director, Creative Cloud and
Creative Suite to get their perspective on how
technology is going to impact creative workflow
over the next year.
MACPHEDRAN: Ray, how do you approach the
creative workflow process with your clients?
VELEZ: Increasingly, our agency is leading creative
efforts for clients, with our technology teams driving
the physical software implementation. The first step
is aligning with the skills and approval processes of
our clients. By approval, it’s about driving innovative
collaborative sessions and working towards agreement
of creative directions. Oftentimes when using the term
workflow, we immediately think about visual identity as
the first step. However, gathering inputs and insights

from the planning and strategy teams prior to creative
concepting should be the true starting point.
MACPHEDRAN: How do you see creative workflow
evolving between client and agency over the next year?

As the global chief
technology officer for
Razorfish, Ray manages
the agency’s capabilities
in Web technology
strategy, architecture and
development, overseeing
all of the company’s
technologists. Most
recently, Ray was the startup CTO in Razorfish’s role
as incubation partner for
Bundle, a personal finance
start-up. He previously
worked at Cambridge
Technology Partners and
Scient, and has been in the
industry for close to 20
years.

Interview conducted
by Sean MacPhedran,
Industry Insider Section
Editor and Group Planning
Director at Fuel.

MORRIS: In the past, digital agencies were brought
into client projects by more traditional agencies to
work specifically on the digital pieces of the campaign.
Today, digital agencies are asked by their clients to take
the lead on everything in the campaign. We expect this
trend to continue, as clients ask not just for the creation
of digital media, but for the analysis and optimization
related to the performance of that media. We also expect
that clients will also be sharing more of their creative
assets with agencies and looking to have agencies
leverage those assets across as many devices and screen
sizes as possible.
VELEZ: We would like to see more traction towards the
creation of “real-time” responses. One example of our
work that required real-time creative was a SmartUSA
initiative where a tweet in the morning resulted in a fullscale response in the afternoon. Similarly, in a recent
campaign for Axe Anarchy, creative was introduced by
the Axe community and ended up in a graphic novel.
This means we need to develop a more responsive and
agile approach to client approvals than just scheduled
creative reviews. Easy-to-use tools that can facilitate
conversations outside of scheduled meetings, are
critical.
Just as critical is the ability to enable workflow that
drives conversations around dynamic data-driven
creative. The ability to dynamically assemble content
and experiences for both client approval and alignment,
along with legal approval, thankfully requires us to
move away from static files.
MACPHEDRAN: Adobe in particular is making a lot

of strides in this area, what new tools can we expect to
see?

“ We need to develop

a more responsive
and agile approach to
client approvals than
just scheduled creative
reviews. — Ray Velez

”

MORRIS: The file sharing capabilities in Creative
Cloud will be key in helping ease these workflow
challenges between agencies and clients. Today,
agencies can share files with clients through Creative
Cloud without requiring the clients to have programs
such as Photoshop or InDesign installed. In fact,
the client doesn’t even need to be a Creative Cloud
member. The ability to “see” into the file is something
only Adobe Creative Cloud is offering and it is a key
differentiator from other file sharing services. We just
introduced the ability to upload files directly from the
program they are created in, and set restrictions on
the files to control who can access them. These files are
viewable by your clients within a browser, regardless
of whether the browser is on a computer, tablet or
even a smartphone. Clients can turn layers of a file on
and off to review different design options, comment
on the files, and view internal data such as the fonts
and colors used – all without having the desktop apps
installed on their system. And if they do have the apps,
they can download files for editing in the desktop app.
In the future, Creative Cloud will offer a visual history
of files to allow a client to quickly review how a design
has changed, with the option to go back to an earlier
version. At Adobe, we are constantly looking at ways to
help creatives and clients work together more easily by
innovating right in the creative workflow itself.
MACPHEDRAN: We still have a ways to go before
we can lean on a single source for all tools. An agency
might operate iteratively with a client using Basecamp,
and another purely through a weekly status in a more
formal presentation. What do you see as the major
challenges remaining in workflow optimization?
VELEZ: I think the remaining challenges are specific
to dynamic data-driven experiences and creative. Tools

like Basecamp or the Atlassian Suite are great at sharing
files and text documentation, but not at expressing
dynamic data-driven components. For example, we
need for tools that drive product recommendations to
assemble dynamic text and visual identity permutations
across 29,000 segments. That’s a real-world example
from work we’ve done for Staples and it’s still a
workflow challenge.

The

SoDAReport


Jack Skeels, CEO, Co-Founder, AgencyAgile

Brands: How to Get Agile
with Your Agency
Jack leads AgencyAgile,
the LA-based consultancy
that helps agencies achieve
better margins, faster
delivery and happier
clients and teams, using its
proprietary Agile valuesbased methods, tools and
training. He is a two-time
Inc. 500 entrepreneur
who previously led
SapientNitro’s LA office,
worked as a senior
management systems
analyst at RAND
corporation, and ran his
first web development
project in 1996.

Brands and marketers want deeper
partnerships with their agencies…but realizing
that goal can be elusive. The good news is
that agencies are changing – many are shifting
to a team-centric “Agile” model which speeds
innovation cycles and can provide better
results, faster, at a more competitive price.
As a brand manager or marketer, you’ll want
to shift your model slightly as well in order to
better take advantage of these changes.

Understanding the “Two Guys and a
Bong” Agency Model

One of the largest dilemmas that agencies face is
growth. While a ten-person agency can operate
with its management functions as part-time roles,
once an agency grows to twenty or so people, fulltime management roles (such as account, project
management and discipline leadership) become the
norm. At that point the agency’s effectiveness begins
to decline. Almost every agency leader we speak with
agrees that growing bigger has meant getting slower,
less nimble and losing a bit of their “edge.”
This is a huge concern for established agencies because
starting up a new agency has never been easier than it is
today. Top talent often leaves one day and competes the
next day against their former agency. Being small, these
start-ups compete on cost, for sure, but they also boast
the ability to partner well and work closely with their
marketer clients on a day-to-day basis. One agency
executive recently lamented, “These days it seems that
some of our toughest competition is from ‘two guys and
a bong!’”
The established agencies are responding to this by reorganizing into flatter, self-empowered teams of 8-20
cross-discipline roles – essentially creating multiple
“Two Guys” agencies within the company. This
approach is often labeled “Agile” both because of the
methods involved, but also because these teams are
more responsive to marketer’s needs, delivering results
better, faster and leaving everyone much happier.
Marketers get the best of both worlds: “Two Guys”
style attention, focus and interaction, combined with
the established agency’s depth, breadth and quality
of talent, and its ability to scale and integrate larger,
broader work. If you find yourself with the opportunity
to work with this type of agency team, here are some
changes you’ll need to get used to…and even enjoy.

“ One of the tragedies

of large brand-agency
relationships is the
distance between
the people who are
really doing the work
(the agency team)
and the people in the
brand marketing
organization.

”

You’ll Brief the Agency Team, not Agency
Management
The “Team” will consist of the people who actually
build what you receive: creatives, strategists, analysts,
developers, etc. When you tell your account person
what you need, like the “telephone game,” information
quality drops as it is passed along. The same is true for
writing briefs, SOWs or change orders – nothing works
better than people talking directly with each other. An
Agile agency team will want to work directly with you –
no middlemen. And chances are you’ll find it fun and
empowering. We had one marketer tell us, “They [the
agency] feel like my right hand now.”

You’ll Meet Early and Often, and Need to
Tolerate Incompleteness
Collaboration means working together frequently, well
before the deadline. You would do that with the “Two
Guys” in order to make sure that they “got it,” right?
Frequent (informal) reviews will boost quality and the
Agile team’s engagement…and yours too. Make sure
they know that you’re okay with looking at incomplete
ideas and work. They’ll still try to crush it, but they’ll
be grateful that you’re a friend, not foe, and you’ll
be grateful that they’ve gotten some sleep and your
comments aren’t life or death to them.

You’ll Get Better at What You Do, Too

Not only will your agency get better at working with
you, but you’ll also get better at working with agencies
– that’s a vital career skill for any marketer. One of
the tragedies of large brand-agency relationships is the
distance between the people who are really doing the
work (the agency team) and the people in the brand
marketing organization. In the Agile “Two Guys”
model, as a marketer, you’ll learn new things every time
you meet with your agency team – they are a hotbed of
the latest, trending ideas and technologies. Keeping up

to date with them will not only put you ahead of your
peers, but will give you the knowledge and real-world
experiences of how to actually do this stuff.

The

SoDAReport


Research Insight

The Ever-Shrinking Purchase Window
Digital Empowerment Leads to Shorter
Purchase Cycles Across Categories

The research team at AOL, a SoDA partner, recently
conducted a study on purchase window trends across
a wide array of product categories. We are pleased to
unveil key highlights from the study in this edition of
The SoDA Report as AOL’s exclusive media partner for
the distribution of the findings.

INSIGHTS
• Due in large part to the vast amount of information
available on demand, shoppers are increasingly
comfortable making major product purchase
decisions in significantly shorter periods of time.
• Most shoppers are comfortable deciding on products
across a wide variety of categories — including
technology, appliances, financial services and home
décor — in either a single day or two weeks.
• Smartphone users feel particularly empowered
about making product purchase decisions across all
categories of shopping – not just on those occasions
where they use their phones for shopping.

Purchase Windows

Question: How comfortable do you feel making purchase
decisions for the following product and service categories
within the specified periods of time?

SHOPPING
Shoppers are comfortable making quick purchase
decisions.
When asked how they felt about their product purchase
decisions, an overwhelming majority of shoppers were
somewhat or very comfortable making a very quick
decision.

ENGAGEMENT
Smartphone users feel especially empowered in their
purchase decisions
Shoppers with smartphones have internalized the
benefits their devices provide. Even when not explicitly
using their phones for shopping, they still feel more
empowered than non-smartphone users.

“Describes me somewhat or completely”

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Modern Marketers
Section Preface
The Six Signs of Analog Craving
Integrating Multiple Agencies into One Brand Team
Job Description: VP of Marketing at ‘tlbt’ (thelatestbestthing)
Cultivating a Brand, One Online Community at a Time


The

SoDAReport

Section 2 : Modern Marketers

Some days I think psychopathy must be the route
to business success. Those days typically involve
meetings in which everyone else in the room grew
up watching some 1980s power-business movie on
repeat at a time when I was listening to rap music and
watching kung fu flicks.
Mark Pollard
Modern Marketer
Section Editor
VP Brand Strategy,
Big Spaceship

You know the movie genre, where people are all
business-like, very-detached, domineering, allknowing, jargon-spouting, expensive-car driving
and shoulder-pad wearing. Today, you can find these
characters in business-centric reality television shows.
If, like me, you don’t understand why some people
in business act like psychopaths — or possibly are
psychopaths and are still successful — then the
following articles are for you. Jessica Elefante points
out little cultural corrections happening right now
because of digital clutter and analog nostalgia. Stacie
Hoffmeister from LVMH discusses how to get your
agencies to work better together while Joshua Dean
from Chobani writes a job description for you —
literally, you — or the person who’ll replace you.
The last piece comes from Emily Schildt, also from
Chobani, a company who has utilized the consumer
to make a name for themselves - without the use of
traditional advertising.
Humanity in business is on the rise. The concept
of purpose continues to imprint itself on the
business world. Pesky numbers people also known
as economists have shown that businesses with a
profit-only view of success underperform businesses
driven by a specific point of view on how to serve
humanity (not to be confused with Corporate Social
Responsibility). Spoiler alert: these companies attract

better talent intent on doing incredible things for
humans.
Here’s to fewer psychopaths in business – and fewer
psychopathic businesses.
P.S. If we ever happen to work together on a piece of
business (even if we’re at separate companies), can
we just, like, hang out a little, get to know each other,
maybe share a laugh, and then do the best work of our
lives without all the bullshit? Because that would be
awesome.

The

SoDAReport


Jessica Elefante

The Six Signs of
Analog Craving
Jessica is a brand strategy
and communications
consultant with a heavy
inclination towards
content, community and
digital channels. She joined
the brand GoGo SqueeZ
as the Director of Digital
Strategy & PR in 2011 and
was a key player in helping
it grow from $6 million in
annual revenues to $100
million in just two years.
For her work she was
awarded Brand Innovators
“40 Under 40.” With years
steeped in brand building,
influencer outreach,
and public relations, she
specializes in growing
“emerging” brands in new
categories.

The natural form is making a comeback. What
is analog in the way I am referencing it? Quite
simply it’s the opposite of digital. Examples
of things now deemed analog: books, music
created sans computers, paper and pen, nature
and whole foods.
Bloggers are ahead of this trend. Many are
concerned about the effects their tech usage
has had on their families and they are making
strides to correct it. Read their posts and words
such as quit, blackout and detox are often
referenced when sharing their challenges about
their digital life. They are not alone.
Do you suffer from these symptoms?
1. Camp Grounded: Operated by the Digital Detox,
Camp Grounded recently gained coverage on
BuzzFeed, NPR, CNN, Huff Post, NYT, PBS, Mashable
and Inc. for the launch of their sleep-away camp
where adults go to unplug. Campers had to trade in
computers, cell phones, Instagrams, clocks, schedules
and work-jargon for an off-the-grid weekend.
http://campgrounded.org

“ We are no longer

beating our competitors.
We are racing to beat
ourselves. Truth be
told: we are the media
clutter that we so often
complain about.

”

2. keuomorphism: Defined as the pomp and gloss of
S
analog objects that are technically no longer needed.
Examples are Apple’s “old” calendars with leather
binding, yellow notepads and bookshelves with
felt and wood veneers. Apple is ditching these for a
simpler, less stylized design aesthetic. Users will enjoy
a more “analog” user experience, digitally. Looks like
flat is the new black.
3. logger Blackouts: Time spent offline to focus on
B
children, families and friends. Often referred to as
hand-free as well. Meaning no phone in hand.
4. mail Bankruptcy: Deleting every email in an
E
inbox or closing your account altogether. Some opt for
a second chance with an away message stating “you
can now find me here” while others throw their arms
up and succumb to the fact that Facebook messaging
and text is better than 6,813 emails. A number of
CEOs and high-level executives have been quoted as
bankrupting their email to better spend their time.
5. Slow Living Summit: For the 2nd year in a row,
the Summit took over Brattleboro, Vermont. Slow
is the opposite of “fast” — fast food, fast money, fast
living — and all of the negative consequences “fast”
has had for the environment and for the health of
people and societies. Slow Living is more time for
family, community and self.
6. YC Restaurant, Edie & The Wolf: Observed in
N
the bathroom of the divinely decorated eatery were
handwritten pieces of ripped cardboard reminding
people to wash their hands. I noticed it because it was
out of place. And it worked. I washed my hands. So
what does this mean for you and digital marketing?

As marketers we have been taught that we need to
“break-through the clutter,” “push the envelope” and
“disrupt.” Each advertisement, post, application, email,
website, promotion, and campaign we create is sexier,
faster and glossier than the last. We are no longer
beating our competitors, but racing to beat ourselves.
Truth be told: WE ARE THE MEDIA CLUTTER that we
so often complain about.
Brands that realize this will have their finger on the
pulse of their consumers.
So what’s a digital marketer to do?
1. Think twice before sending an email. Is it
necessary? If so, try sending an email that is not html
coded. Think about it. Just a blank email with text
from a brand. That would create a double take, don’t
you think?
2. reate tangible things that people can touch
C
and feel. Instead of a customer service email full
of niceties or apologies, how about a hand-drawn
“I’m sorry?” Add stickers. Drive it back to your other
properties with a fun hashtag and see if you turned
your jaded fan into a superfan.
3. upport bloggers’ desires to simplify and
S
streamline. Don’t waste their time with blanket
PR pitches and weekly mailers. Get to know them
before reaching out to them. Be authentic. Consider
if you could offer a way to partner on content around
unplugging? Or better yet, send them to a conference
about unplugging, on your brand’s behalf.

4. o a double take before creating your “much
D
needed app” to check the mobile-friendly box
on your marketing strategy. I’ve almost been
guilty twice. Almost. Ask yourself and your team
the following types of questions. What problem are
you solving? What value are you providing to your
consumer. And more importantly, how will you
market it and with what percentage of your budget
will you support it? After you answer these questions,
you may end up creating one less app for the world, or
the app we could not live without.
5. Open your arms up wide and wrap a big bear
hug around nostalgia. With things moving too fast
and everything feeling the same and unoriginal (hello
every single new movie), people like to “remember
when” and “look back” to the old days. Well, the old
days weren’t that long ago. It was 2007 when the first
iPhone was available — six years ago. Six whole years.
Can you even remember what life was like before it?
Nostalgia is a gold mine for content. Just look at what
BuzzFeed has done. You have an entire generation out
there that loves to reminisce as well as another that is
up and coming in the ranks and needs to be educated
on some pre-iPhone stuff before it becomes extinct.
Case in point is the tweet from the 2012 Grammys:

In a sea of digital trends don’t rush to be on the
forefront of disruption. Taking one step back may be
just what your brand, client or consumer needs to be in
order to stand out in the crowd.

The

SoDAReport


Stacie Hoffmeister, Global Marketing Director,
Belvedere Vodka at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis
Vuitton

Integrating Multiple
Agencies into One
Brand Team
Stacie Hoffmeister is
branded for life as a
luxury goods marketer.
Her current passion is
exploring ways to bring
the power of digital and
innovation to luxury
brands. She currently
works at Global
Marketing Director at
LVMH. Prior to that
Stacie held various brand
management positions at
Coty Prestige and
Unilever Cosmetics. She
resides in New York with
her husband and two
children.

Today, just as a lead surgeon relies on a team
of doctors, nurses and professionals to perform
a complex operation, a brand leader relies on a
team of specialists to elaborate an idea into a
tightly integrated plan. As a result, a new kind of
workplace diversity is emerging: a brand team
made up of external agencies. The key variable
within the brand leader’s influence is the time
it takes to get to higher levels of productivity,
which is a difficult task in any team situation, let
alone when the team consists of people from
different companies.

From one brand leader to another, here are
some ideas on how to reduce the time it takes
to get to high levels of team productivity — and
still manage to have some fun at the same time:

1. Work with the best
For each marketing function that requires external
expertise, hire best-in-class agencies. Don’t be seduced
or intimidated by sexy client rosters or hefty price tags.
Consider the agency’s unofficial reputation (I regret
the times I disregarded a colleague’s warnings about
an agency). Seek evidence that the brand has captured
their curiosity. (I look for subtle, physical signs such as
a sparkle in the eye, active listening behavior and wry
smiles).
2. Agree on the brand team
For each agency that you hire, identify 1-2 people to
sit on your cross-functional brand team. Choosing
people who play nicely with others will make team life
easier. Document your expectations of the brand team
member(s) in your service agreement with the agency.
3. Get to know the culture of each agency
This can be accomplished efficiently by working out
of the agency’s office for a day. There are invaluable
cultural cues about the organization waiting for you to
observe. For example, leaving a little thank you gift for
the agency at the end of the visit generates good will (a
flourless chocolate cake is my favorite leave-behind).

4. et to know the team on a personal level
G

“ When you hire a

best-in-class agency,
treat them that way.
Then they will move
mountains for you.

”

Go out for drinks and dinner as a team and one-onone. A “rite of passage” activity builds bonds quickly.
Karaoke works wonders. Aha moments often come in
casual and social settings. We are more open, trusting,
calm and creative when we are having fun.
5. Treat agencies as partners, not contractors
After years of doing it wrong, a valued mentor taught
me to adopt a consultative approach with agencies. I
began to ask questions instead of assuming answers.
I learned to seek the agency’s input on decisions that
affect them. When you hire a best-in-class agency, treat
them that way. Then they will move mountains for you.
Taking these five steps (ideally prior to the first team
meeting) sets up the team for a faster move towards high
productivity. The dynamics of the meeting room bring
new challenges.
The following five ideas are in-meeting behaviors that
encourage high productivity:
1. Get everyone in the same room
There should be an in-person team meeting once a
month at a minimum. Put aside T+E for faraway team
members to travel to these meetings. Experience on
globally-dispersed teams (13 years) and in marriage (14
years) has convinced me that people need to see each
other to trust each other. Lack of face time deters high
productivity.

2. odel behaviors that build trust
M

“ Experience on

globally-dispersed
teams (13 years) and
in marriage (14 years)
has convinced me that
people need to see each
other to trust each other.
Lack of face time deters
high productivity.

”

I’m sure this never happens to you, but I am often
tempted to behave in ways that are contrary to what I
expect from others. As a team leader, I’ve been guilty
of arriving late to meetings at times. If I continuously
check my handy (i.e., cell phone) and then snap at
a team member for not getting to the point quickly
enough, I’ve effectively told the team that not
listening and poor behavior are acceptable practices.
An effective team environment is a place where
people feel respected. That means that the leader
models punctuality, preparedness, attentiveness and
compassion, among other things.
3. repare yourself for weird science
P
We all know it. Brilliant people can be strange, so be
open and tolerant to behaviors that you may find odd.
A meeting may include a 3-minute meditation or a
mid-day cocktail. (I’ve seen both). Stay in tune with
the mood of the team and go with whatever it takes
(within the law) to get creative juices flowing and
people working together.
4. on’t go to bed angry
D
When you encounter behavior that erodes the team’s
progress toward productivity, deal with it that
day, with that person, one-on-one. Healthy team
relationships allow for open discussion about difficult
topics. If the work continues to suffer due to someone’s
bad behavior, the offender should be swiftly replaced.
The team will thank you for it.

5. Allow natural leadership to supersede titles
and hierarchy
Adopt the attitude that teams are flat organizations.
While there may be a team leader or facilitator,
everyone must be treated as having an equal voice.
Such an environment allows team members with the
appropriate expertise to take a leadership role at the
time the work demands their expertise. For example,
the PR gal may have the most in-depth knowledge
of the target consumer. Even though she is not the
marketer, she should take leadership of a discussion
or work stream that relies on consumer expertise.
Being a brand leader at the helm of a multi-agency team
requires a large measure of humility. Get used to being
the unsung hero. When the teamwork is going well, your
integration efforts may go unnoticed because all the
broader organization sees is the good work. However,
when agencies do not work well together it is certainly
noticed because its ouput suffers.
It’s the brand leader’s responsibility to keep everyone
moving towards one goal — the success of the brand.
This comes about when the team tasked with delivering
the tools of success is a high performing team.

The

SoDAReport


Josh Dean,
VP Brand Communications, Chobani, Inc.

Job Description: VP
of Marketing at ‘tlbt’
(thelatestbestthing)
Josh Dean is a recognized
leader in brand
development with 10
years’ experience in the
UK and US. Josh has
extensive experience
working collaboratively
with both traditional
and digital agencies.
He has helped bring an
array of award-winning
initiatives to fruition, most
notably on Axe. He is a
champion of enabling large
organizations to embrace
change and controversial
ideas. Follow him
@mrjoshuadean.

Wanted: a constant questioner, one who has
unparalleled insight, curiosity into the lives of
people who love our brand, a champion of new
and a disruptive thinker. He or she learns very
quickly and is not afraid to fail. If that sounds
exciting, read on. If that scares you, definitely
read on.
A strategist, psychologist, writer, artist and geek
We are looking for someone to get their hands dirty in
many disciplines. The many areas of marketing — PR,
publishing and technology — are blurring, and that is a
good thing because it is in this blurry space that we often
find great ideas. You’ll need to recruit, lead and inspire
a team of misfits, people who want to change the world
with something new.
An inner child
At tlbt, we believe that every question is a good question.
We like to challenge everything and leave nothing undisrupted. After all, who would have thought that taking
the most popular soft drink in the world and doing the
opposite (bad taste and expensive) would have been so

successful (kudos Red Bull)? You need to provide that
challenge, ask the questions that nobody would ask,
and produce unexpected solutions that surprise our
customers and provide new sources of growth.
A creator of a ‘story-room’

“ While we want you to

relish logic and be great
at analyzing data, you
need the other side too...
the human touch and
the magic. You need the
gut and the holistic POV
to spot a great idea and
help champion that idea
within the business.

”

To survive in the millennial world, this brand needs
to be a story-telling powerhouse. Sometimes, this may
entail more classic filmmaking, but increasingly we will
need you to create everyday short stories that spark an
emotional connection with and among our fans (like
The Beauty Inside — a campaign created by SoDA
member company Pereira & O’Dell). It’s about the
quality of our content and the quality of our followers.
A great cook who is both a masher and a baker
Do you have the ability to mash products, ideas and
technologies together? Like the Nest or like Red Tomato
did with the fridge magnet? How can you open up your
brand’s own API and look for ways to mash this with
other technologies? We’re also looking for someone who
can lead agencies to concoct an integrated idea that can
live on multiple screens and spaces and have consumers
be part of the conversation.
An inspiring human engine for the brand
While we want you to relish logic and be great at
analyzing data, you need the other side too...the human
touch and the magic. You need the gut and the holistic
POV to spot a great idea and help champion that idea
within the business. Sometimes you won’t be right or
popular, yet to be remarkable you can’t please everyone
and we don’t want you to. You need to be the catalyst
that always moves the brand forward and you need to
do as well as say. You have that energy that people want
and magic is made from.

Tap sources of inspiration daily, if not hourly
Run and when in doubt, look no further than your
mobile. For this role you will need to be light on your
feet, to “move fast and break things” as Facebook says. Be
prepared to change course and make things quickly.
Here’s to the future
So, if what you have just read inspires you (and makes
you feel a little bit scared) we want to see you. You have
what it takes to be a marketer at tlbt. We want you to
come to work every day and to love your job. You have
the opportunity to turn this brand into a powerhouse
that can make a real difference to people’s lives while also
having a lot of fun. We look forward to meeting you.

The

SoDAReport


Emily Schildt, Director of Digital Engagement,
Chobani, Inc.

Cultivating a brand,
one online community
at a time
A fervent foodie, born
with the gift of gab,
Emily Schildt has found
a home with Chobani as
their Director of Digital
Engagement. Since
joining the family in 2010,
Emily has established
highly engaged digital
communities for the
Chobani brands, securing
its #1 position in America’s
hearts. A Maryland native,
Emily currently resides in
New York City. In her free
time, she enjoys reading
(more) blogs, trying her
hand at photography and
perusing antique shops.

What few companies are willing to admit is their
greatest opportunity: the consumer defines
your brand. With the saturation of social media
today, the best planning and strategy in the
world can’t account for the amplification of
popular opinion. Smart companies leverage this
with heavy emphasis on listening, adhering to
consumer interests, behaviors and demands,
and allowing insights to drive innovation,
communication and marketing.

“ We know that

modern consumers
make decisions based
on functional benefits
and price, but also
on participative and
emotional benefits.

”

Without any traditional advertising, Chobani Greek
Yogurt rose at rapid speed to the top of its category.
From the beginning, we made a conscious effort to focus
on social media, investing in cultivating a passionate
following to authentically influence others, all the way
to the checkout lane. With communication standards
matching the excellence of our products, and ‘giving back’
a core corporate value, no tweet and no Facebook post
went unanswered without a human response. That was
the simple start of it all — top-notch customer service. As
Chobani’s popularity grew, so did its fan base — resulting
in the pleasant surprise of an echo chamber of delight
among vocalists online.
The function of social media quickly advanced from
customer service to proactive conversation. As we
listened closely, key influencers weren’t just talking
about our products — they were talking about our brand.
Consumption was habitual, rooting Chobani in an
everyday healthy lifestyle. It was associated with highs,
lows, routine, milestones, emotions and hobbies. To
propel conversation, our model evolved to organizing
communities around these shared interests, and reaching
like-minded audiences beyond the yogurt-enthused.
Internally, we restructured to focus on these
communities, developing everything from content to
experiential activities. With a laser-focused team, we
could capitalize on topic trends and platform-specific
opportunities per community, and allow external agency
talent to support larger campaigns, initiatives and fresh
thinking.
Many companies choose to put their community
management efforts entirely in the hands of their
external agency partners, often losing the speed, agility
and intimacy necessary to sustain an ongoing drumbeat
of conversation. While time-consuming and demanding

of human resources, we believe our commitment is in
keeping this practice in-house – which we owe much of
our success to.
Apart from a steady share of voice, our social media
engagement has allowed fans to play an active role in
molding our brand into what it is today. The feedback
loop has informed everything from product development
to marketing and communication. Tweets line the halls
of our offices across the globe. We know that modern
consumers make decisions based on functional benefits
and price, but also on participative and emotional
benefits. Millennials seek brands with which they share
values and a sense of ownership. With an overwhelming
array of options in every aisle, each purchase is a
statement of identity. And as we move forward as a
company, we’ll continue to ensure we’re dedicated to
listening and evolving our brand to excite, delight and
collaborate with our core consumer base.

People Power
Section Preface
The Power of People through an Ethnographic Lens
Simple and Valuable Recruiting Advice
Focusing the Rhizome


The

SoDAReport

Section 3 : Introduction

As technology becomes more sophisticated,
understanding its uses is critical. The tensions between
empowerment and intrusion, between the simplification
and complexity of everyday life, between freedom and
dependence, and between adoption and rejection are on
the rise.

Jean-Pascal Mathieu
People Power Section
Editor
Chief Innovation Officer,
Nurun

Look at the example of Google Glass. What better source
of inspiration for a section called People Power than
a device that gives users the ability to discover things
from angles never seen before, to augment reality with
useful information and to have access to a computer at
any time without even thinking about it? And yet, look
around you. Half the people you talk to consider Glass
to be a technical marvel and a dream come true, while
the other half believes it foreshadows the worst possible
future for humankind.
This divisive example illustrates how difficult it is
to draw conclusions about future trends when the
reassuring rationalism of innovation does not produce
a uniform, coherent reaction among people. Other
scenarios involving the tension points mentioned above
are even more nuanced. Where humans are concerned,
situations are rarely black and white, but rather on a
continuum with an almost infinite variety of greys.
The ability to assume the emotional complexity of
each human being, encapsulate that complexity to
make it intelligible, and derive actionable models is a
skill shared by the three contributors to this section.
Tracy Johnson from Nurun explains how a rigorous
ethnographic approach can help us understand why
people act as they do. Matt Paddock from Grow
Interactive suggests how to identify talent and make
decisions fast enough to retain employees. And Julianne

Beswick, from Phenomblue, smartly uses the metaphor
of the rhizome to share her creative method adapted to
the complexities of our time.
The last words of this introduction go to Antoine de
Saint Exupery, “And now here is my secret, a very
simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see
rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The

SoDAReport

Section 3 : People Power

Tracy Pilar Johnson, PhD,
Director Ethnographic Research, Nurun

The Power of
People through an
Ethnographic Lens
Tracy Pilar Johnson, PhD is
an anthropologist who has
been conducting marketfocused ethnographies
for the past 10 years.
Currently the Director of
Ethnographic Research
at Nurun, throughout her
career she has worked
with companies as
varied as Google, Time
Warner Cable, Target,
The Associated Press,
Sun Media, Kraft Foods,
General Mills and Merck,
Inc.

People Power… people are powerful because
they are complex. And because they are
complex, their motivations and behaviors
are not easily understood. Indeed in today’s
world of rapidly changing and complex market
environments, demonstrated ways of truly
understanding people are in high demand.

In more and more situations, businesses are turning to
ethnography for its ability to offer contextual insights
into how people live. In particular, I believe that
businesses look to ethnography to understand how
people use stuff – all those products, services, designs
and so on that the companies we work for produce – to
make meaning in their lives. Arguably, the expectation
is now set that businesses find some way of talking
about how they use ethnography – or human-centered
research, design research, etc. – to really understand
their consumers.
Within this context, how do we differentiate among
all the practices that have assumed the mantle of
ethnography? Such diverse techniques include
everything from in-store interviews, to on-site
observations, living with a consumer for an extended
period, and ethnographies conducted online. Given
the variety of these practices, what can we really say is
going to achieve ethnography’s true goal: to describe
and illuminate people’s lives – their behaviors, beliefs,
motivations and habits – within the context of their
culture? While certain techniques may lend themselves
to particular consumer or market segments, the objective
remains the same: to take all of that complexity, be true
to it and translate it into ways that we and our clients
can come to a deeper understanding of people, their lives
and their culture.
A critical way to understand whether the methods we
have chosen and the context in which we are deploying
them are on target to carry the mantle of “ethnography”
is to think about whether it fits the “thick description”
test. Take, for example, the situation of when someone
winks at us. Without an apparent context, we don’t
know what it means. It might mean the person is
attracted to us, that they are trying to communicate
secretly, that they understand what you mean, or really
anything. As the context changes, the meaning of the
wink changes.

“I believe that

businesses turn to
ethnography to
understand how people
use stuff – all those
products, services,
designs and so on that
the companies we work
for produce – to make
meaning in their lives.

”

ALL human behavior is like this – complex, contextually
bound and culturally influenced. We therefore
distinguish between a thin description, which describes
only the wink itself, and a thick description, which
explains the context of the wink within the norms and
practices that form the backdrop of that particular
culture or society. Accordingly, it is the task of an
ethnographer to not simply rely on thin descriptions, but
rather to provide “thick” descriptions that illuminate the
complexity of people’s lives.
Here’s an example that ties into a technology and
cultural phenomenon more closely related to the digital
marketing world – “always-on” connectedness. When
working with a large media conglomerate in the United
States, several participants brought up the ways in which
their smart devices made them feel more “connected.”
However, contrary to mainstream coverage in the
media, this connectivity was not without its problems.
While spending the day with a woman in her twenties,
she shared a story with us about how she would leave
her cell phone on a shelf outside the shower so that she
could respond to texts while bathing. After recounting
this story, she stopped for a moment to reflect that, in
fact, she probably needed “an intervention.” This thick
description – behavior set within the context of an
individual’s life – gave us greater insight into the ways
in which people struggle with connectivity, or perhaps
intrusion would be a better word, of technology into
their daily lives.

The

SoDAReport


Matt Paddock, Director of Engagement,
Grow Interactive

Simple and Valuable
Recruiting Advice
Matt Paddock began his
career in human resources
and recruiting over 15
years ago, and has worked
for both large and small
technology firms in talent
development, succession
planning and training. He
currently serves as director
of engagement for Grow,
a digital agency based in
Norfolk, VA.

Retaining good people is challenging, but
finding them is one of the hardest tasks any
leader will face. Being a good judge of talent
is fine, but the hiring process can feel like a
pageant where the contestants don’t show up
or won’t cooperate. Even after attracting good
people, there’s still the challenge of closing
the deal. Every search is slightly different,
and no system is perfect, but here are some
immutable truths that can help improve your
odds of success.

First, Know Thyself
None of us perform in a vacuum, so the best candidate
for one team may be a poor fit elsewhere. Too little
context for your hire increases the potential for a bad
match. Well-written job descriptions help, and a great
question to ask during the first interview is, “What did
you see in the posting that excited you, and that you felt
matched up with your background and experience?”
Speed, Spend and Skill
Every hire comes down to these three elements, and a
good general rule is that you can only prioritize two per
search.
• Speed: When you must hire quickly, know you’ll either
pay more or compromise on skill. Hiring freelancers is
an example of prioritizing speed and skill, occasionally
to the detriment of your profit margin.
• Spend: Hiring on a budget generally means searching
longer, unless you’re targeting inexperienced talent.
Interns are thrifty entry-level hires, but even here you
can’t pay under market and expect top skills.
• Skill: When you can’t compromise on skill, expect to
spend either time or money. Finding superior talent
on a shoestring budget under a tight deadline isn’t a
good strategy, as many frustrated hiring managers
learn.
How It Starts Is How It Stays
Early impressions you make on a candidate directly
affect your hiring outcomes. If you think of the
interviewer as a gatekeeper, remember that door swings
both ways. Your firm is judged by your actions, down
to the first email you send, whether you call on time
for a scheduled interview, and how you describe the
position. Predictably, many bad hires originate with bad

“Predictably, many bad

hires originate with bad
interviews.

”

interviews. Skipping steps, asking weak questions and
failing to check references all increase the odds you’ll
hire the wrong person or miss hiring the right person.
Your Recruiting Network = Your Recruiting Net
Worth
Most opportunity is at the top of the recruiting funnel,
where people aren’t looking for a new job and may be
unaware of your firm. Building and leveraging a strong
network helps avoid sloppy, stressful and reactive
recruiting. Complaints about job boards or recruiting
agencies usually come from people who aren’t cultivating
a network of potential candidates and referral sources.
Delay Only Increases Risk, Never Reward
Timely action is critical during a search, especially
toward the end. Classic examples of bad behavior during
the interview process include delays in responding to
candidates, or failure — on the part of candidates — to
respond back to potential employers in a timely fashion.
A 24-hour wait for you or your candidate feels like 36
hours on the other side of the desk, especially when an
update is due. You wouldn’t leave a client waiting on the
line about an important deal, so treat your prospective
new talent the same level of respect.
Most of this advice boils down to combining thorough
planning and process with good objective decisionmaking. These approaches are easy, and can make a
huge positive impact on your firm’s talent strategy. The
only hard part is the discipline required to consistently
add these five elements to your hiring process.

The

SoDAReport


Julianne Beswick, Design Director,
UX & IxD, Phenomblue

Focusing the
Rhizome
Julianne Beswick is
a Design Director
with a background
in interaction, user
experience and new
media. She works
with Phenomblue’s
internal groups to
define and implement
innovative and effective
UX solutions that
communicate both highlevel design strategies
and detailed user
interactions. She earned
her Master of Fine Arts
from the Graduate
Media Design Program
at Art Center College of
Design.

Think of a tree: its internal root system sprouts
from the ground and delivers nutrients and
water to its branches and leaves. For years,
this model shaped the way huge brands would
traditionally influence consumer behavior.
Here’s some tasty and affordable Colgate —
and it only costs a dollar! We were hypnotized.

Now, imagine a piece of ginger: its multiplicity
of arms growing every which way. This
complicated biological structure, categorized
as a rhizome, is much closer to the
communication systems we work with now.
Each twisted, snarled stem is effectively an
independent bio-communication channel.
Rhizomes hold an eerily close resemblance to media
today. However, it was over 30 years ago that Deleuze
and Guttari first began discussing this principle in their
1980 book, A Thousand Plateaus. In it, they compare
modern modes of expression with the rhizomatic
structure. It’s amazing how pertinent this foresight grew
over time. Every single aspect of our world has grown
in complexity. Today we find ourselves designing for a
culture so extremely rhizomatic that it has created a true
need for designer’s focus and skill.
Designing with the Rhizome’s Characteristics in
Mind
We are continually reminded that capturing consumer
attention is problematic. The challenge lies in the fact
that our coping mechanism for dealing with this problem
remains unclear. In eMarketer’s “Time Spent With
Media: Consumer Behavior in the Age of Multitasking,”
the challenge is measured in terms of how we consume
and interact with content and platforms. For instance,
69% of consumers engage with personal email while
watching TV, 57% visit social networks, 32% IM or chat
with friends. This is a problem when it comes to design.
How do you make focused decisions or compelling work
in this rhizomatic environment? Brands are looking
to agencies for guidance. Therefore, as agencies, it is
imperative that we develop a clearly defined POV based
on insights into how consumers are likely to interact
with the brand and content in this multitasking milieu.
While there may be an endless array of possibilities, it is

“In the same way that

users consume media
with split attention,
products are often
designed with split
attention. Such products
lack a strong, focused
brand utility and
prove to be another
unremarkable tangent
within the rhizome.

”

impossible to execute on all of them well, so you need to
choose wisely.
Develop a Process
Sticking to a set of loose guidelines yields a sense of
control. Here are five ways for the project team to
simplify and focus:
1. Determine whether to take a multi-pronged approach
or to adopt the craft method. It’s a contradiction in
terms to promise a product that is highly-crafted as
well as all-encompassing. You honestly can’t do both
(at least not well), so pick — A or B. There’s nothing
wrong with choosing a limited direction. In fact, it’s
a relief to unload that kind of pressure because as
the scope of a project broadens and as its feature set
grows, the more research, design, time and expertise
are then required to put out a quality product. And
from the consumer’s perspective, the broader the
scope of utility, the less one can focus on any one
tool set. Smaller, more focused concepts are more
nimble, able to receive crafted attention and can be
understood more readily by consumers.
2. Anticipation around the start of a project can
materialize as excitement or anxiety. This is the hot
mess that produces great work. Embrace uncertainty,
do your research and sleep on it. Your subconscious
mind will work on a solution and sort things out even
when you’re unaware that it’s happening.
3. Establish a point of view. Define it and stand by
it because weakness in voice inevitably leads to a
weak product. It isn’t hard to do something halfway.
In the same way that users consume media with
split attention, products are often designed with
split attention. This work finds its way into the
marketplace, but lacks a strong, focused brand or

utility, proving itself to be another unremarkable
tangent within the rhizome. Devoting sufficient
attention and time to do good work has become
a challenge (and a luxury), but it’s worthwhile
nonetheless.
4. If you can define a few questions that need
answering, use them to establish the borders of your
new project. Find your competitors within those walls
and determine what’s going to distinguish you from
this group.
5. Temper. It feels really good to establish direction, but
that should never be the end of ideation. Once your
brain has switched into making mode, it’s tempting
to let it off the hook. Instead, take continual steps
back and be sure you’re happy with the path you’ve
chosen.
These words of advice may come across as common,
obvious or insignificant, but they help untangle the
mess.
In the Field
When designing for user experience (admittedly a
vague expression), we should be crafting experiences
around the complete life cycle of a product (an equally
vague expression). So how do we reduce the vagueness
to produce truly great work? Projects invariably take
unpredictable paths. However, through persistent
questioning and a willingness to put a stake in the
ground and focus at major milestones, you can begin to
craft an informed approach that yields quality products.

Tech Talk
Section Preface
The Personalization of Everything
The Rise of the Interest-Based Network
The Internet of Things: Billions of Marketing Opportunities
Interview with Mike Kuniavsky, Principal PARC Innovation Services
Marketers and Big Data


The

SoDAReport

Section 4 : Tech Talk

Zachary Paradis
Tech Talk Section Editor
Director of Innovation
Strategy, SapientNitro

The intent of Tech Talk is to “future gaze on the
technology developments and trends impacting
the industry.” Given the state of marketing and the
larger context of our world, just about everything
we do is either being directly delivered or enabled
by technology. This fact is more remarkable given
the great majority of marketers likely never got into
the business out of a love of technology. Ironically,
marketers today can’t be successful without it.
That said, technology should not feel foreign. While
critics since the industrial revolution have introduced
a “human versus technology” dynamic, it would seem
to be a false opposition. In the end, humans — unlike
the 99% of other species on our planet — naturally
extend their capabilities through various technologies.
We crafted that first spear to gain reach, the wheel
to enhance mobility and eyeglasses to help us see
clearly. That humans conceive and build technology is
absolutely natural.
Yet, all too often technology has resulted in a binary
experience, hard and unforgiving. Perhaps the “versus”
critics could not have imagined the future in which
we now live. They could not imagine how organic and
fluid it feels to take an iPhone – not really a “phone”
but a More Personal Computer (MPC) – out of one’s
pocket to book an appointment and put it back again.
Connected thinking and the blending of science with
the humanities can result in truly natural and useful
communications, products and services. The hard
edges of engineering can and should be softened by an
understanding of people.
Naturally, the articles in Tech Talk all introduce
ways in which technology enables more effective

and more human, interactions between people and
brands. Stephen Foxworthy, Strategy Director at
Reactive, opens the section with an exposition on The
Personalization of Everything — painting a world on the
cusp of extending what we’ve come to expect online to
the physical as well. Samantha Afetian, Social Strategist
with Digitaria, explores the Rise of the Interest-Based
Network, flipping the long assumed notion that the
value of a network is primarily based on its number
of nodes. Tarah Feinberg, CMO & NY Managing
Director of KITE, provides a glimpse at the Internet of
Things and the opportunities it provides. An interview
with Mike Kuniavsky, author of Smart Things and
Principal at PARC Innovation Services Group, predicts
three technologies on the horizon which will radically
change people’s lives. And the section ends with one of
my colleagues at SapientNitro, Technical Architect
Santhosh Subramani, helping tame the abstract concept
of “Big Data” into an understandable and actionable
focus area for brands.
Beginning-to-end, each article highlights how
technology can enable both people and the brands
serving them. The purpose of technology is to extend
what it means to be human. One could say the best
technologists are, in fact, great humanists.

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The

SoDAReport


Stephen Foxworthy, Strategy Director, Reactive

The Personalization
of Everything
Stephen has over 15 years’
experience in digital,
with a focus on high
performance online retail,
customer experience
management and multichannel marketing. With a
strong belief in data-driven
decision-making, Stephen
is an evangelist for effective
design, maximizing the
measurable return on
investment of online
activity by enhancing the
user experience. Find him
on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Remember the scene in the movie Minority
Report when Tom Cruise is greeted as “Mr.
Yakamoto” by a holographic apparition as he
walks into a futuristic Gap store?
This type of personalization via facial
recognition, CRM and digital screen technology
is already possible, but everyone who has seen
the film knows just how creepy it was.
While companies are collecting masses of

“ As Bill Gates once

famously quipped,
‘Content is King’ but
personalized content
will become the ÜberGalactic Emperor.

”

customer data, what most brands do with this
data is not very impressive. This will change
over the next few years, as the Personalization
of Everything becomes a reality.
Behavioral Analytics
If another person says “Big Data,” I’ll scream. (Ahem,
notwithstanding the excellent article on Big Data in this
section, obviously!)
Collecting masses of data on your customers is
fundamentally useless, unless you know what you want
to find out from it and how you’re going to adapt to
it. Behavioral analysis tools are now maturing to the
point where they can quite accurately predict what
customers are likely to want next based on what they
do and personalize their experience to match, even via
salespeople, over the phone or in-store.
Recommendation Engines
Anybody who has ever shopped on Amazon knows just
how good they are at recommending products to buy
based on what you’ve looked at or bought, but every
now and then, their recommendations can be quite
random. We all want to be different, just like everybody
else, but we’re still often more alike than we think.
Now there are engines – driven by collaborative or
taxonomy based filtering – that can be bolted onto most
websites and ecommerce stores providing Amazonstyle recommendations on the fly. These systems
are performing better and better, with suppliers like
RichRelevance or Barilliance offering engines that
automatically generate effective recommendations
based on surprisingly limited user data.

“ Collecting masses of

data on your customers
is fundamentally
useless, unless you know
what you want to find
out from it, and how
you’re going to adapt to
it.

”

Dynamic Content & Flexible Content
Management
As Bill Gates once famously quipped, “Content is King,”
but personalized content will become the Über-Galactic
Emperor.
One limiting factor of personalizing a customer’s
online experience used to be the need to customize
a website content management system to serve
different versions of content to different audiences.
Now, content management systems such as Adobe
Experience Manager, SDL Tridion and Sitecore make it
much simpler to define rules for personalization and to
manage the content required to enable it. This wave of
truly capable content management systems is making
personalized multichannel experiences practical for
every brand.
Changing Consumer Attitudes on Privacy
Companies such as Google and Facebook are already
sitting on deep and valuable information about you that
allows them to target you with far more relevant ads.
Whenever we talk about personalization of the customer
experience, the conversation almost immediately turns
to privacy, identity protection and intrusion — not the
benefits that personalization might bring. In truth,
nearly every interaction we have online is already being
tracked, adding to data profiles of who we are, what we
do, and what we like. It is clear that our comfort, with
less privacy, given a real benefit, is a new norm.
What’s Next for Personalization?
The technology driving the ability to deeply personalize
the customer experience is now commonplace and

getting smarter by the minute. Hotels and retailers are
already using advanced techniques such as shopper
tracking, data mining and facial recognition to identify
high-value customers. Soon, being welcomed by name
as we enter a store won’t seem creepy anymore. It will
just be the way business is done.

The

SoDAReport


Samantha Afetian,
Social Community Strategist, Digitaria

The Rise of the
Interest-Based
Network
Samantha Afetian is a
social community strategist
at Digitaria in San Diego.
She works with brands
in the retail, tech, health
and financial industries
to create end-to-end
social media strategies.
Sam enjoys long scrolls
through Pinterest, tweeting
influencers, and assuming
the identity of brands to
build relationships with
loyalists. Tweet her at
@SamAfetian.

Some may think that with monsters like
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter eating up the
social space, there isn’t much room left in the
market for competitors—but they’d be wrong.
Interest-based networks are becoming our go-to
social spaces and most don’t even realize it.
An interest-based network is exactly what
it sounds like: a social network built around
interests, using common threads to bring
members of an audience together. Whether
it is travel, food, fashion or cats (check out
Catmoji), interest-based networks are taking

over the social media scene, and brands that
get it stand to reap the benefits.
Interest-Based Networks Explode
There seems to be an infinite number of interestbased networks these days. Though they vary in size
and quality, these networks are segmenting web users
into niche audiences. Sites like IT Central Station (a
platform for enterprise technology gossip), Sermo (one
of the largest medical social hubs for physicians and
scientists), or StyledOn (a worldwide network of fashion
enthusiasts and trendsetters) are attracting users due
to their specific offerings that cater to interests, hobbies
or professions. As “Facebook fatigue” sets in, web and
mobile users are turning to these niche networks for
content that specifically appeals to them.
As an industry, we definitely should not underestimate
these communities. Just because they’re niche doesn’t
mean they are small. Take for example that fairly new
interest-based network that has a user-base of 70
million members worldwide. What’s it called again?
Oh, yeah--Pinterest. Everyone’s favorite pinning site,
with 11.7 million unique monthly visitors, is an interestbased network.
With an experience concept that allows users to sort
through and pin content to and from categorized
pinboards, Pinterest is a shining example of the power
of interests. With categories like weddings, travel,
DIY, food and education, Pinterest has created a site
where users can build an ecosystem based on their own
interests, which others ultimately share and follow.
But Pinterest isn’t the only “niche” site that has seen
success. TripAdvisor, a network for travel enthusiasts
built on user-submitted reviews, recently hit more than
200 million unique monthly visitors. A recommendation

“ While it is true that

social media as a
whole works best when
brands engage in twoway communication,
interest-based networks
require extra effort.

”

network catered to those researching their next trip,
TravelAdvisor has amassed more than 100 million
reviews of more than 2.5 million accommodations,
restaurants and attractions.
Big Gets Specific
In fact, some big networks are finding cozy niches to
settle down in, instead of playing to the masses. Even for
Millennials, in our lifetimes, we have already witnessed
the rise and fall of social media giants. While most of
the platforms never managed to resurrect themselves
(i.e. Livejournal), Myspace was lucky enough to rise
from the ashes. Earlier this year, Myspace reemerged
into the public eye, not as the one-size-fits-all social
network of yesteryear, but as an interest-based network.
With features aimed at connecting musicians, writers
and other types of artists with their fans, coupled with
a music-streaming function, Myspace has repositioned
itself to become the premier network for the music
industry—though it’s not there yet.
As social networks peak in adoption, we will likely
see more of them begin to turn over to interest-based
experiences. Could Facebook reinvent itself into a
network where we can connect with people from around
the world to have conversations about one topic, while
still holding on to its core functions? It sounds farfetched, but possibly. With the introduction of hashtags
and the further integration of Graph Search into the
system, we may very well see Facebook become more
interest focused in the coming year.
What To Do About It
Regardless of the vertical your company or client falls
within, there is likely a relevant interest-based network.
Ready to harness the power of the niche? Here are three
things to consider:

Go big, go niche, or go home: Some marketers will
say that your brand should be everywhere, on every
network, but if you do have a niche audience, your
resources may be better spent on just a few. Consider
the options, and prioritize networks aligned with your
target market.
Interest-based networks require authenticity:
While it is true that social media as a whole works
best when brands engage in two-way communication,
interest-based networks require extra effort. Imagine
walking into a book club and trying to discuss the plot
without actually reading the novel—your fellow book
club members will know almost immediately that you
are faking it. That’s kind of how niche networks work.
Continue Listening: Always keep an eye out for new
networks. Regularly watch for content from industry
trendsetters for information on new platforms and
trends. Institute ongoing listening and search programs
to watch for conversations about new social spaces for
the industry. Interest-based networks are popping up
daily. One of them may be the perfect place for your
brand.

The

SoDAReport


Tarah Feinberg, CMO & NY Managing Director, KITE

The Internet of Things:
Billions of Marketing
Opportunities
Tarah Feinberg has 15+
years in entertainment and
marketing as a translator,
creator and ambassador
for emerging technologies.
He launched new divisions
and practice areas, like
the Digital Studio at NBC
Universal and iCrossing’s
social media and real-time
content marketing group.
As CMO and NY Managing
Director at KITE, Tarah
leads communications and
customer development.

As more of the objects we interact with every
day begin to communicate and share data
with the Internet, huge opportunities arise for
marketers to learn about consumer behaviors,
and how they can make their messages and
products more relevant and timely. This linkage
between physical objects to the Internet
or virtual objects is often referred to as the
“Internet of Things” (IoT). This term is not
especially new, but the concept is now being
realized in a variety of powerful ways, across a
wide range of human life.
The term IoT was invented by Kevin Ashton in 1999,
co-founder of MIT’s Auto-ID Center, “which created
a global standard system for RFID,” according to
Wikipedia. Back then, IoT was mostly the stuff of
science fiction; a Jetsons/Knight Rider/Bond dream
of connected cars, robot maids and devices triggered
by biometric monitors. However, RFID began to push
the concept into reality and, over the last few years,
innovation and advancement in this space has exploded.
Bosch Software Innovations predicts that, by 2015,
6,593 billion IP-ready devices will be connected to the

“ The possibilities are

actually endless, as
everything in our lives
becomes more connected
and we become more
comfortable sharing
the minutiae of our
daily activities with
marketers.

”

Internet and that about 75% of the world’s population
will have online access. The distinctions between the
“online” and “offline” worlds are shrinking fast.
IoT covers an immensely broad range of tech, including
wearables, “quantified self”, connected homes, Internetconnected automobiles, smart cities and the supply
chain (the original motivation for Ashton and the
development of RFID, who was working with P&G at the
time). Marketers are beginning to tap into all of these,
as they offer valuable insights and potential touchpoints to reach people in more powerful ways. Consider
just a few of the remarkable business and marketing
implications of this data, if harnessed effectively:
• Send prescription reminders or automatically add
food to shopping lists when supplies get low
• Promote a new bathing suit line as a sunny weekend
approaches
• Entice runners with a nearby refreshing drink as they
hit their fifth mile
The possibilities are endless — as everything in our
lives becomes more connected and we become more
comfortable sharing the minutiae of our daily activities
with marketers.
At KITE, we have built a platform containing over
260,000 startups, across practically every area of
emerging technology, platforms and media. Each week,
we curate a different category and encourage our agency
and consumers to rate and review the companies in
that area. When we recently focused on IoT, these five
companies rose to the top:

Withings creates smart products and apps to take care
of yourself and your loved ones through smart scales,
baby monitors, blood pressure monitors and activity
trackers.
Nest Labs is the creator of the world’s first Learning
Thermostat, using your temperature adjustments to
program itself to keep you comfortable and guide you to
energy savings.
MakerBot Industries is a Brooklyn-based company
that creates affordable, open source 3D printers.
Fitbit creates a suite of health/fitness data-tracking
wearables that monitor and analyze your daily activity.
Twine alerts you to small in-home problems before
they become big problems. Tell a web app what to listen
to with simple rules, and you’ll get notifications and
peace of mind via email, SMS, Twitter and more.
Company scores and descriptions powered by KITE
The biggest challenges for marketers are to leverage
IoT effectively by turning the massive amount of
data into actionable insights, and learning to use this
information in a way that doesn’t alienate consumers.
Overall, as long as the computers don’t turn on us, the
IoT movement is making the world a healthier, more
efficient and safer place to live.

The

SoDAReport


Interview with Mike
Kuniavsky, Principal
PARC Innovation
Services
Mike Kuniavsky is a user
experience designer,
researcher and author.
A twenty-year veteran
of digital product
development, Mike
designs products, business
processes and services
at the leading edge of
technological change.
He specializes in multidevice interactions, cloudbased service design and
the design of hardware
products connected to
cloud-based services. At
PARC, his group helps
companies invent the
future using a mixture
of ethnography, future
scenario development,
opportunity discovery and
user experience design.

Tech Talk Section Editor, Zachary Paradis
recently sat down with Mike Kuniavsky,
author of Smart Things and Principal at PARC
Innovation Services Group, to discuss and
predict three technologies on the horizon which
will radically change people’s lives.
PARADIS: So, we’re walking around with what was,
not too long ago, considered a “supercomputer” in
our pockets. This obviously had a massive impact on
everyday life, especially now that we’re reaching mass
penetration of these devices. If you had to select three
technologies set to change people’s lives, what would
they be?
KUNIAVSKY: Predictive Analytics, drones and
Collaborative Design Software.
PARADIS: Why Predictive Analytics?
KUNIAVSKY: It is what makes sense of the Internet
of Things. We are in the process of injecting networked
information process and technology into every possible

The SoDA Report (Volume 2, 2013)

The SoDA Report (Volume 2, 2013)

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